Breaking the Circle
by the rabid plot bunny
Summary: After restoring his brother's body, Ed struggles to find new meaning in his life after having achieved the only goals he ever had. Though Al has returned to Risembol, Ed remains in Central to investigate a drug ring suspected of using alchemy.
1. Chapter 1

Ed picked up the hot cup of coffee and stirred it slowly. His eyes gravitated towards the window to his left. The only window in the small kitchen area of his apartment.

He had left the military dorms weeks ago. He wanted to tell himself that it was just because he needed more space, it was incredibly nice, but that was not the only reason, nor the compelling force that drove him out. His life had changed so much in the past few months that it seemed ridiculous to have the only apparent constant in his life to be the crappy dorm room that he had spent years considering the closest thing to any sort of home he had.

He laughed to himself as he thought about how he should have just burned the place down like he had his childhood home. That had seemed to be a quite effective way of wiping the slate clean, and in all honesty, he could probably get away with it if he could just figure out a good enough cover story (There were those new arrays he was working on… nobody knew what they were for yet anyway).

He had been rash as a kid, and still was in many ways, but no one could deny that he had matured drastically over the years. It would be hard for anyone to serve in the military for years and not mature in one way or another…

He picked up his mug of coffee, and moved over to the window, leaning against the sill. It had been a shock, restoring Al's body after so long. Somehow he had been caught up in the momentum of time as they searched frantically for a solution, and yet also lodged into a place utterly unmoving.

His unwavering resolve to find the stone, and the constant of Al, always the imposing suit of armor with a child's voice, by his side seemed to have deprived Ed of a sense of the passing time, and when he had looked at Al lying on the hospital be across from him, and himself in the mirror that he had demanded from the nurse, he realized that he was no longer a child in spirit or body.

He took another few moments to sip his coffee and look out the window down at the people below. The were all caught up in the same torrent that he had found himself in, and in the same lulling cyclical motion of day in, day out, week by week, as time flew by. Yet they were all so drastically different from him.

From his window, he heard the bells of the church a few blocks off. It was admittedly quite nice to have it so near by, as it seemed to always be there reminding him of the time and prompting him along when he spaced out in the mornings (as he was apt to do).

He set the mug back down on the counter, and after a brief stretch, grabbed his coat and an apple on his way out of the door. He made his way down the winding stairs quickly, but slowed his pace as he left the lobby of the building and stepped on the sidewalk. It was a nice day, considering that they were in Central and that it was only February. The sun was out, and only a few wispy clouds threatened to cover it as he walked, taking a bite out of his apple as he went.

It had rained for the greater part of the previous week, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that it had cleared up, yet at the same time, he felt a small twinge of guilt that he would be unable to really enjoy the day, as he would be cooped up inside all day.

Once he had turned 16, Hawkeye had decided that he was old enough to deal with paperwork. Before, he had had to write mission reports of course, but even those had seemed tedious and unnecessary to him. He had no idea how much damned paperwork the military seemed to throw at them, and had developed a new sort of respect for Mustang for the mounds of it that the man went through on a daily basis (and if not respect, at least a certain amount of pity and understanding).

Hawkeye had started making him fill out more and more of the paperwork related to missions as the year went on. It had started with completing damage reports, and then the statements of expenses (which included accommodation and food for longer missions), then the municipal police reports to be filed on local records… the list went on and on.

At first, he had tried to get longer missions to increase the amount of time between having to deal with all of the paperwork, but he soon discovered that it didn't really make much of a difference, as the amount of paperwork seemed to jump exponentially as the mission got longer.

It was alright though. It had been a pain in the ass when he was still searching for a way to bring Al's body back, but now it was simply a way of passing the time. Time that he didn't really know what he would do with otherwise.

It was a relatively short walk to Central Command, and within 10 minutes of having set out from his apartment, he found himself walking through the front doors and up to Mustang's office, which was on the second floor of the building, and faced the inner courtyard of the building.

He approached the closed door and briefly listened to hear the voices inside. He knew it was insubordination to simply barge into his superior officers' office with no warning, and though a few years ago, he would have just plowed into the room, now he took the time to make sure that at least there was no one in the room who would actually care (Mustang and the rest of his team were already so used to it that they would probably be more surprised if he knocked than if he barged in).

After determining that it was just Hawkeye and Mustang in the room, he opened the door and entered. They both turned towards the door as he opened it, Mustang seeming his regular, lofty self, while Hawkeye seemed incredibly irritated, almost seething. Yup, it was definitely another normal day at the office.

"Morning, Mustang," Ed said casually, walking up to the desk, "What have you got for me today?"

"You've already finished with your previous assignment?" Roy responded, raising an eyebrow at the blond, then sending a look at Hawkeye, the significance of which, Ed couldn't quite decipher.

"Yeah," said Ed, "I turned it in yesterday evening. It was easy. And boring as hell. Doesn't the military have better things to do than make us sort through old paperwork and summarize it in a new stack of paperwork?"

Ed could have sworn that he heard Mustang mutter something along the lines of "Well, someone has to do it" under his breath as he neatened one of the stacks of paper on his desk, and felt childish anger at the Colonel flare up inside him for a moment. He hated the thought of being used for such banal work that any other soldier could complete.

The past few months—since Al had moved back to Risembol—he had noticed that he seemed to be receiving more and more mundane tasks to complete for Mustang. Though he understood that it was meant to give him a break from the harder, more dangerous work he was used to, to let him settle back into the semblance of a normal life after such a huge shift, but none the less, he thought that it would have instead been much more helpful to him if they had begun to pile on the work, sending him on the most dangerous, distant, longterm missions that they could find.

He could definitely use the distraction. He had had too much time to think lately. And too much time by himself. He was accustomed to spending long periods pouring over alchemic texts by himself in some empty corner of the library, but he had never before come home to an empty quiet apartment, and found that he really didn't know what to do with himself in the evenings.

Roy shot the same look from before at Hawkeye, who scoffed, and stared right back at him. He may be her superior, but she had absolutely no qualms about staring him down (or forcing him at gunpoint when it came to that) when she felt he was acting in a manner unbefitting of his position.

"Well, Fullmetal, you're in luck," he said, never breaking eye contact with Hawkeye, who looked like she was about to implode, "There is a quite interesting case that needs to be dealt with. It doesn't involve leaving Central, but is far from mundane. Hawkeye and I were just discussing it, in fact."

He picked up a file from off his desk, and handed it to Ed, who flopped down into the chair facing the Colonel's desk, and opened up the file to read the brief summary of the case that appeared on the first page.

"Sir," Hawkeye said firmly, barely keeping her cool "I must express how deeply I am opposed to giving Ed this mission for the reasons I expressed earlier."

"Noted," Roy stated frankly He and Hawkeye exchanged one last challenging glare, and Roy then turned his attention to Ed, who was still reading the debriefing.

Ed's eyes darted over a few more lines before setting the file in his lap, and looking back up at Roy.

"Drug rings?" he stated.

"Yes," said Roy, "they exist in any big city of course, and normally the military wouldn't get involved, but as you read In the report, it seems as though alchemy is somehow being used, which we've never seen happen before, and don't quite know what to make of."

"Ed," Hawkeye interjected, " Do you know what cocaine is?"

Ed almost scoffed at her. Of course he knew what it was. Even more sheltered boys of his age knew about drugs, and he had led anything but a sheltered life.

"Yeah," Ed said slowly, trying to figure out exactly what she had meant by the questing. She couldn't really be asking him if he knew about drugs, could she? It was really a stupid question.

"Unless you want me to recite its chemical composition," Ed added sarcastically, "In that case I'll need a few hours to study up."

Hawkeye did seem put off by his less than serious answer, and took the opportunity to take her leave, dropping the papers she had been holding off at Mustang's desk and turning towards the door with a curt "Sir" in Mustang's general direction.

"I don't think that will be necessary, Fullmetal," said Roy, "but in all honesty, it couldn't hurt. It'd be more useful for you to take some time to look at the police's information on drug trafficking in the city though, and that may take you a while to get through. You'll need authorization to look at the files though. Hold on a minute."

Roy took a piece of stationary from the left side of his desk, and wrote out a note, signed it, and stamped it with the military emblem before handing it to Ed.

"Just give that to the reception desk at the police headquarters," Roy said, "They shouldn't give you any problems accessing the files."

"Thanks," Ed said quickly, snatching the paper from his hands, and heading out the door, file in hand. He was genuinely excited about this new mission. It had been so long since a field-related mission, and from what he had read about the situation so far, it definitely seemed like he would have to go digging around for information in the city.

He mentally kissed mindless paperwork goodbye for the moment and prepared himself to delve into this new mystery as far as he could.


	2. Chapter 2

Ed sped through the streets, weaving between the people on sidewalk, and turning corners until he found himself in front of the police headquarters. He stepped inside, and was pleased to see that everything seemed calm, so he wouldn't have to sit around waiting.

He went up to the reception desk at the side of the room, and the woman there looked up from the document she was re-copying on her typewriter, greeting him with a pleasant smile.

"May I help you?" she asked sweetly.

Ed handed her the note from Mustang, and she read it over, her brows knitting in confusion. Ed smirked a bit to himself. When he was younger, he had always been insulted when people didn't realize who he was, even though looking back, he saw how ridiculous it would have been for them to assume that the 13 year old boy was in fact a state alchemist. It was had become less and less common that he received such a reaction, but when he did, he found it quite amusing to watch people process the information.

"This is… to look at some of our records?" she said, looking up from the paper as Ed nodded, "And, you're with the military, Sir?"

"Yes Ma'am," he said, pulling his state alchemist watch out of his pocket, and letting it hang over the woman's desk, swinging slightly. Her eyes widened when she saw the watch.

"Oh, of course," she said, obviously flustered, "I'm sorry, it's just that you looked so young to be in the military. Come right this way please."

Ed shoved the watch back into his pocket, its chain dangling, and followed her. She led him to a small room that must have previously been an office, but had since been piled high with boxes upon boxes of files. There was one window that let the sun's light into the room, but it was partially obscured by a particularly high stack of boxes.

The woman flipped on the lights, and two overhead lamps flickered to life, further illuminating the room.

"Well, here you go," she said, looking around at all the boxes, "This should be pretty much all you need."

Roy had been right when he had said that he had his work cut out for him reading up on police records of drug dealings in the city. He just hoped that not every box in the room pertained to his assignment, and that he would be able to ignore some of the boxes.

"Alright," he said to himself, preparing himself for a long tedious day—or maybe a few long tedious days—of reading through all of the files.

"Thanks," he shot over his shoulder to the woman, as a sort of afterthought, as he began studying the labels on the boxes, a few of them catching his eye.

The woman left the room awkwardly. She still seemed to not have entirely gotten over the fact that he was a state alchemist, and chances were that she would be running to her boss, or one of her colleagues, asking them to come and make sure he really was who he said he was. It had happened before. Once, he had even been let across a police line to investigate a murder, only to be thrown out again by the next officer who saw him.

He pulled a few of the boxes down, to get to one particularly interesting looking box, which he then set down on the floor in front of him. There was no chair in the room, but he wasn't about to go hauling all of these records back to his apartment, so he figured he would just end up sitting on the ground. As an afterthought, he moved the three boxes obscuring the window to their own separate pile, and opened the window a crack.

Sitting down, he pulled out the first of many, many files, and began to skim over its contents.

He started out reading through them carefully to process the information, but as time went on his eyes began darting more and more quickly across the pages, easily picking out the key words that he was teaching himself to look for.

He didn't stop for a break until the sun moved to a particularly obnoxious angle, shining directly through the window. He set down the file he was reading, and gave his arms a quick stretch, before lifting himself up off the ground, and hhmphed at the sun, before walking over to the window and leaning against it.

It was early in the afternoon, and there were quite a few people walking through the streets (on lunch breaks, most likely). Ed stretched again, but stopped abruptly as his own stomach began to growl.

"Well, I guess it is pretty much time for lunch," Ed said to no one in particular, "I just wonder if there is anywhere around here that is cheap…"

He trailed off, and started running through his mental checklist of nearby stores and cafes, trying to think of where he could get the best bargain. It wasn't as if he needed to economize his money. He had done nothing but work for the military for the past 6 years of his life, and up until a few months ago had lived in the dorms. Heck, if he wanted, he could probably go to the fanciest place in the neighborhood and write it off as expenses for his assignment (one upside of being forced into writing reports and filling out paperwork was that he had become quite adept at… editing… his reports). It was simply a matter of personal comfort, and he knew he would just feel better having a cheap-as-dirt sandwich, and eating it on the go than actually sitting down at a restaurant.

He sighed. He didn't know the area very well, and decided that maybe it would just be better if he headed home soon. He took his time picking out a few particularly interesting and helpful looking files, slipped on his coat, and headed out of the building.

He was pretty sure that he wasn't technically allowed to take files like this, but honestly, why bother subjecting himself and some poor secretary to going through the necessary steps to let him take them if no one would even notice in the first place?

When he passed the front desk area, he gave a quick nod to the secretary at the desk before heading out (if she noticed the files under his arm, she said nothing, for which he was thankful). The day was still as beautiful as it had been in the morning. It almost tempted him to take the longer route back to his apartment, which led past a park of sorts, and along the bank of the river, but in the end, he decided that it wasn't worth the trouble.

It was a long walk. If he had been in a hurry, he would have been able to think through the route and easily remember the alleyways and small streets that would lead him directly back home, but his mind wandered as he went.

He told himself that he just needed some time to process all of the new information for the case, but he knew that that wasn't really the case. He seemed to need more and more 'down time' lately. He could sit for an hour, sometimes longer in his apartment, just staring out the window, or at the wall…

He didn't really think about anything most of the time, and when he did really try to think about anything, be it a case that Havoc and Fuery were working on, a new series of arrays being developed, his brother… he got fidgety.

Now, Ed knew that he was considered to be a hot-head by everyone he met with very few exceptions, and when it came to other people, that was true. However, when it came to studying, to academics, he had always been incredibly focused.

Even before the death of his mother, he had taken delight in working his way through the difficult texts left behind in their house by his father. They had been basic books, perfect for beginners, but regardless, he had been just a kid, probably half, or even a third of the age of most people who began studying alchemy in its most basic forms.

Books had been a refuge for him for the past 6 years as well. He spent every waking moment by his brother's side, almost without exception, and so the hours he spent pouring over texts were the only semblance of any time he spent 'alone'.

Most of the time, his brother was with him in the library, also researching anything that could possibly have connections to the philosopher's stone, but Ed had been able to shut himself off from his surroundings entirely if he wanted to, as long as he was reading. It was a time of silence for Ed, as well as a time for him to let his thoughts and emotions settle and organize themselves, as they tended to do naturally.

All of this had gone down the drain lately however. He could still read through academic works regarding alchemy, as well as slightly more rudimentary texts in other areas of study, in a remarkably short amount of time, but it was with much less zeal. He found that he did not really absorb the information unless he really applied himself, and even when he did, he took no satisfaction from it.

He had tried going to an optometrist, thinking that maybe a slight vision impairment was making it harder for him to focus, but the doctor told him that his vision was practically perfect. After that, Ed had tried not to rationalize it (or think about it at all), and had made sure that he got a steady flow of paperwork from Mustang to keep himself at least somewhat occupied.

He was only half surprised to find himself at the front door of his apartment.

He let himself in, walking into the kitchenette, tossing the files onto the counter, and began to make himself lunch. Ed was incredibly hungry by this point after having walked so far, but somehow, nothing he had in the apartment really appealed to him. He settled for a slightly pathetic sandwich of bread and cheese, and sat down at the small kitchen table to eat it.

He opened up one of the files that he had taken from the police office, and began looking through it. He had already scanned over it once, but this time he read it in more detail, picking up the names of the people and places that it mentioned.

There were really a lot of people that seemed to be involved. There were a few names that came up again and again, but these people had all been arrested, or ended up dead, and of course had only been the grunt men. Ed knew that Cocaine (as well as the other drugs that these people dealt) was expensive, and what he had seen in the reports so far only emphasized further just how much of a microcosm it created.

There was a complex hierarchy that had formed around the production and sale of these drugs. Of course the junkies were on the bottom of the social ladder, providing a conveniently dedicated clientele to the upper levels. There were the dealers, and countless, countless middlemen, which is what truly made the system work so well.

It would be practically impossible for the police to track the drugs back to their source all the way through this complex chain. When they did catch someone, it was always a low level dealer, someone stupid enough to get caught. Ed, however, was not the police. He was much, much smarter—even Mustang would agree with him on this, otherwise he wouldn't have been put on the case—and fortunately, he didn't have to deal with all of the police protocol.

That's not to say that the military had no protocol (not by a long shot, Ed chuckled inwardly at the monstrous amount of paperwork that this assignment would end up generating before it was over), it was just that the military had a certain way of sidestepping laws and a looser definition of "promoting public safety" than the police did, both of which suited him quite well.

He spent a few more moments glancing over the contents of the last page, and then flipped back to look over the names of a place he thought might be useful.

"Dante's…" he said quietly to himself. Dante's was a bar in the grimy inner city sector. He had been there before, gathering information on a murder case a while back. The people he had talked to definitely seemed like they could be involved with drugs; that sort of jumpy unease and willingness to do almost anything (even divulge information that could eventually lead to their own death) for a bit of cash was a clear indicator of their addiction.

He couldn't imagine any ties to alchemy in that circle though. It hadn't ever come up in the years before, when he had scoured the entire country for any sort of unlawful or bizarre alchemy looking for the stone with his brother…

His brother. He hadn't heard from his in a while. Al was just busy in Risembol he guessed. I mean, it's not like he was working or anything; he was just living. Living was something he had missed out on for years and years, and he deserved every moment of it that he made up now, and more. Ed didn't want to get in the way of that again.

Al would call once in a while, maybe once a week, (twice if he was lucky). At first when Al had moved out of central, he had called every day, sometimes even more than once. This was often to cry about how much he missed Ed and also just how much he _felt_.

Al really felt everything, sometimes the phone would ring, and when Ed picked it up, he would hear Al sobbing noisily on the other end of the line, babbling about the taste of food, about the wind on his skin, or even about the feel of socks on his feet.

Al would go on and on. He always started out entirely unintelligible, but then Ed would begin to be able to pick out words; he would hear something about Winry, soup, warmth, and the steam rising from the bowl, Al would talk about it like it was some sort of miracle, and that was before he had even tasted it, just holding the bowl in his hands would sometimes be enough to set him off.

Ed would always feel guilty about the years of life that Al had lost because of his foolishly arrogant attempt to resurrect their mother, but sometimes he couldn't help the tinges of jealousy that he felt towards the awe and intensity with which his younger brother now lived.

Though their experiences during the years they spent searching for the philosopher's stone were vastly different (Ed obviously being the lucky one, having kept all of his senses, and not suffered the alchemic confinement of his body in a non-living vessel) when they had finally achieved their goal Al had emerged as a full person, full of hope and wonder while Ed had not. His excitement and joy for their accomplishment had quickly been overshadowed by the loss of his goals (which had been the driving force in his life up to this point), the last of his childhood innocence, and in a way, the loss of his brother, from whom he was now separated from for the first time.

Outside his window, he heard the church bells chime the hour. He had not even realized that his mind had slipped away from his task and he mentally scolded himself. He wanted to have at least something to report to Mustang in the morning, and knew that there must be something, _something _in these files that would be helpful to his search. No matter how talented the criminal, there was always some kind of trace, and Ed had years of experience looking for such traces.

He went to tidy up the counter, putting away the remaining bread that he had taken out for his lunch, and taking a small sip of the leftover, and now cold coffee he had left there that morning before pouring the rest of it down the sink. Caffeine was good, but not good enough for Ed to tolerate old coffee. Leaving the kitchenette in a relatively tidy state, he sat back down at the table, determined to thoroughly analyze the files he had brought home before morning.

* * *

Well, there was chapter number 2. I would love to get feedback of any kind, so please review (it only take a moment).


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